14-Year-Old Bindi Irwin In Dispute With Hilary Clinton On Population Growth

Bindi Irwin, 14, is a passionate conservationist who feels that population growth is a major problem that is detrimental to our earth. She expressed her views on the dangers of population growth in an essay that she was invited to write for U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton’s e-journal, however she was gutted to find out that the entire section on population growth had been cut in the final edit prior to publication.

Bindi is the daughter of late “Crocodile Hunter” Steve Irwin and is also a child star who has appeared on television numerous times. She was asked to write 800-1000 words on why she had chosen to devote her life to wildlife conservation for the e-journal, which was supposed to be published in the December issue. The issue was entitled “Go Wild Coming Together for Conservation” and is part of Secretary Clinton’s endangered species initiative, but it went out without Bindi’s essay because the young wildlife activist did not want it published in its edited form.

In the section of the essay that was edited out, Bindi used the analogy of having 70 friends turn up to a party that had been prepared for 15, as an example of overpopulation and thinly stretched resources. She wrote: “How is it possible that our fragile planet can sustain these masses of people?”

Bindi’s mother, Terri, who raises Bindi and her 9-year-old brother at their Australia Zoo on the Sunshine Coast said that her daughter was disappointed that her opinions on population growth had been edited and felt as though she had been silenced.

Bindi wrote to Hilary Clinton’s organization and asked them “what happened to freedom of speech?” She also added that the section about population growth represented her opinion and she did not want it edited out.
The edited version was not published at Bindi’s request and she was informed by the organization that there was no time to do a re-write. But the headstrong teen said she was not willing to do a re-write in any case.
A zoo spokesperson said:

“She [Bindi] said that while it was a good message that they were trying to convey in the publication, she just wanted her whole essay to be printed rather than just a snippet of it without the other points she wanted included. So that’s how it’s ended.”

The whole Irwin family has been ardent conservationists for many years. Terri Irwin said she supports her daughter’s views on population growth and mused that it was an unpopular topic. She said:

“It’s astounding that in just over 100 years we’ve gone from 1.5 billion people on the planet to 7 billion so you think ‘what do we do in the next 100 years?’ We’re going to be warring over water and space and food…I just think it’s fascinating that when Bindi does an interview and talks about population, more than 50 per cent of the time it’s edited out…It’s something we do need to talk about or the ship’s going to sink man.”

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